Σελίδες

Tuesday, 30 December 2014

UN, 30 December 2014 – Falling short of the required number of positive
votes and faced with a veto from one of its permanent members, the
United Nations Security Council today failed to adopt a draft resolution
that would have affirmed the “urgent need” to reach within 12 months a
peaceful solution to the situation in the Middle East and would have
paved the way to a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

UN Security Council is expected to vote as early as Tuesday afternoon on
a Palestinian draft resolution that calls for a peace deal with Israel
within a year and an end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian
territories by late 2017.

Sunday, 28 December 2014

At least one person has been killed and hundreds more remain trapped after
an Italian ferry with almost 500 people on board caught fire off the
Greek island of Corfu, the Italian Navy has confirmed.About 160 people have been rescued so far, while Italian and Greek
helicopter crews prepared to work through the night to airlift
passengers in pairs off a burning ferry adrift in the Adriatic Sea.

Friday, 26 December 2014

Beach
side memorials, moments of silence, and religious services are planned
across Asia on Friday to mark the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean
tsunami that killed at least 220,000 people in 2004. The
gigantic wave stuck a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean rim. It
destroyed entire coastal communities, wiped out families and crashed
over tourist-filled beaches the morning after Christmas.

Tuesday, 23 December 2014

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Tuesday said France had deployed 300 extra troops to patrol public areas over the Christmas period following a spate of attacks on police officers and shoppers.

In an announcement broadcast on live TV, Valls said he appreciated that the “deeply shocking” events had “understandably created great concerns”, but insisted that “each event must be treated separately”.

Sunday, 21 December 2014

Economic slump in Russia poses an increasingly serious threat to the German companies operating in that country, the President of the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK), Dr. Volker Treier said in an interview published by Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

The crisis in the Russian economy is putting an increasingly bigger brake on the business operations of German companies in Russia, Dr. Treier said, adding their activities were suffering in the first place from the falling exchange rate of the ruble.

Wednesday, 17 December 2014

The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba more
than 50 years after they were severed, US President Barack Obama has
said, just hours after Havana announced it had released a US aid worker
who had been jailed for five years in Cuba.

Monday, 15 December 2014

Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday (Dec 15) lashed out at the
European Union for criticising the mass arrests targeting opposition
media outlets, telling Brussels to "mind its own business."

Thursday, 11 December 2014

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has been awarded with the Confucius Peace prize, China’s own version of the Nobel Peace Prize which organizers of the alternative distinction consider biased against the Asian giant.

The ceremony was held at the Beijing University with Cuban students representing Castro, receiving a statuette, a diploma and money on behalf of the historic leader of Cuba’s revolution.

Tuesday, 9 December 2014

"Enhanced interrogation" techniques used by the CIA on militants
detained in secret prisons were ineffective and never produced
information which led to the disruption of imminent terrorist plots, the
declassified report by the Senate Intelligence Committee has found.The report said the CIA misled the public and government policymakers
about the effectiveness of the programme, which ran from 2002 to 2006
and involved questioning Al-Qaeda and other captives around the world.

Sunday, 7 December 2014

Syrian
media reported on Sunday evening that Israeli jets had bombed targets
near Damascus international airport and in the town of Dimas, north of
Damascus and near the border with Lebanon. There were
no reports of casualties in the reports, but the general command of the
Syrian army said in a statement that several facilities had been hit,
both at the Damascus International Airport and in the area of Dimas.

Friday, 5 December 2014

France said today it had agreed to put $60
million into a fund managed by the United States to compensate Holocaust
victims deported by French state rail firm SNCF to Nazi death camps, a
deal that protects it from future US litigation.About 76,000 Jews were arrested in France during World War Two and
transported in appalling conditions in railway boxcars to concentration
camps such as Auschwitz, where most died.

Saturday, 29 November 2014

The Arab League has agreed to present to the UN Security Council a draft resolution that will set a timeframe for the creation of a Palestinian state.

"We can no longer wait. We can no longer live with the status quo. Israel wants us to be an authority without authority," Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said. "I understand the consequences of the UNSC move, but the most dangerous situation we can be in is remain in the status quo."

Thursday, 27 November 2014

Oil prices sunk to fresh four-year lows on Thursday, with New York
crude plunging below $70 a barrel, after OPEC decided against cutting
output despite a huge oversupply in world markets. At about 16:10
GMT, West Texas Intermediate for January delivery struck $69.11 per
barrel -- last seen on May 25, 2010. Brent North Sea crude for January
hit $72.74, a level last witnessed on July 7, 2010.Asked whether
the oil OPEC had decided not to reduce production, Saudi Arabian Oil
Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters in Vienna: “That is right.”

Friday, 21 November 2014

P 5 + 1 negotiators /five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany/ have not made any considerable proposals that would require coordination with Teheran, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told reporters on Friday.

Wednesday, 19 November 2014

The United Nations on Tuesday adopted a resolution condemning North
Korean rights abuses and called for the Security Council to consider
referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for
alleged crimes against humanity.

Sunday, 16 November 2014

Israel will never agree to limit its construction activity in
Occupied East Jerusalem, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on
Sunday. “One thing should be clear: we will never accept the
definition of building in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem as
settlement activity,” he said at a news conference with his German
counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Thursday, 13 November 2014

DHARAMSHALA: President Barack Obama raised the Tibet issue during a joint press conference in Beijing on Wednesday with Chinese president Xi Jinping, the Daily Mail reported. ‘We are not in favor of independence,’ President Obama said at the press conference.

‘But we did encourage Chinese authorities to take steps to preserve the unique cultural, religious and linguistic identity of the Tibetan people,’ he said.

Wednesday, 12 November 2014

Pope Francis has called on G20 leaders not to forget the poor, saying to do so would be "regrettable" as the heads of the world's most powerful economies prepare to meet in Australia.

The Group of 20 leaders are expected to sign off in Brisbane this weekend on a pledge to boost the level of their combined economic output by at least two percent above the currently projected level in the next five years, creating millions of jobs.In a letter to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who holds the G20's rotating presidency, the pope said world powers "must not forget that many lives are at stake behind these political and technical discussions".

Monday, 10 November 2014

UN, 10 November 2014 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the formation of an internal inquiry aimed at reviewing “certain incidents” reported at United Nations facilities in the Gaza Strip during the recent summer conflict there between Palestinian factions and the State of Israel.

During his visit last month to the war-ravaged enclave, the Secretary-General called for a thorough investigation into incidents where UN facilities – including schools run by the UN agency tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) – sustained hits resulting in the deaths of numerous innocent civilians and UN staff members.

Friday, 7 November 2014

China and Japan have reached an agreement on maintaining peace in the disputed chain of islands in the East China Sea after three years of war mongering. The agreement was reached in Beijing between China's State Councilor Yang Jiechi and the visiting National Security Advisor of Japan, Shotaro Yachi.

The new move may also pave the way for the first ever meeting between Chinese president Xi Jinping and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Cooperation summit next week.

Wednesday, 5 November 2014

The Republicans achieved sweeping midterm election wins on Tuesday,
seizing control of the US Senate in a blow to President Barack Obama
that will limit his political influence and curb his legislative agenda
in his last two years in office, said analysts.

Republicans won
in places where Democrats were favored, like a Senate race in North
Carolina, pulled out victories where the going was tough, like a Senate
battle in Kansas, and swept a number of governors' races in states where
Democrats were favored, like Obama's home state of Illinois.

Monday, 3 November 2014

Pro-Russian separatists in the breakaway Ukrainian regions of Donetsk
and Luhansk went to the polls to choose leaders for their
self-proclaimed republics, bringing the rebellion in the country's
industrialized east to a climax in a move likely to exacerbate tensions
between Russia and the West over the Ukraine crisis.

Alexander
Zakharchenko, 38, a mining electrician-turned-rebel leader, on Monday
won the election for leadership of the "Donetsk People's Republic
(DPR)," the separatists' political and military stronghold in eastern
Ukraine.

Friday, 31 October 2014

According to a U.N. report, an estimated 15,000 fighters from around the world have left their homes to join extremist groups operating in Iraq and Syria. It adds that actual numbers could be even higher...

The report, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council by a panel that monitors al Qaeda and the Taliban, states that foreign fighters are joining the Islamic State and other extremist groups on "an unprecedented scale." They are coming mainly from the Middle East, Western Europe and North Africa, although there are also some Asians and a smaller number of Americans.

Thursday, 30 October 2014

From the Official Website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (Statements and speeches):

Considering the ultimatum issued
by Kiev and some Western capitals that elections not be held in the
self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, it would be
logical to remind the following.In accordance with the Minsk
agreements reached in September this year by representatives of the
President of Ukraine and the self-defence forces of southeastern Ukraine
with the mediation of Russia and the OSCE, these elections can be held
between 19 October and 3 November of this year.

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

UN, 29 October 2014 – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today deplored the planned holding by armed rebel groups in eastern Ukraine of their own “elections” on 2 November, calling the potential polls a “breach of the constitution and national law.”

“These ‘elections’ will seriously undermine the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum, which need to be urgently implemented in full,” Mr. Ban said in a statement issued by his spokesperson in New York.

Tuesday, 28 October 2014

An agreement regarding the route for the deployment of Peshmerga
fighters to the besieged Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane has been reached
and troops are on the verge of departing, officials from the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) told Anadolu Agency on Oct. 28.

The
spokesman of the KRG’s Peshmerga Ministry said discussions had dragged
on because of negotiations regarding the heavy weaponry that the troops
from Arbil will bring to assist Kurdish fighters in Kobane in their
struggle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Monday, 27 October 2014

German
government considers those elections an important step towards
stability, whereas an Italian politician and journalist Giulietto Chiesa
believes that stability in Ukraine is still very far away ...MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/. Ukraine’s newly-elected parliament is
unlikely to restore Ukraine to stability, Italian politician and
journalist, Giulietto Chiesa, has told TASS.“Stability is still very far away. Apparently, after the elections
the prevailing presence of right-wing parties inside the Verkhovna Rada
will be used as a pretext for an offensive (against Donetsk and Luhansk
regions),” Chiesa said.

Friday, 24 October 2014

WASHINGTON, October 24 – The United States takes the reports about chlorine attacks against Iraqi police officers by the Islamic State (IS) extremists very seriously, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday.

"I'm not in a position to confirm it, but we take these allegations very, very seriously. In particularly, the most recent allegations about the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon," Kerry said at a joint press conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se.

Wednesday, 22 October 2014

Four former employees of the US security company Blackwater have been
convicted of almost every charge related to the shootings of more than
30 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad seven years ago.The jury in Washington found Nicholas Slatten guilty of first-degree
murder, and the three other ex-security guards - Paul Slough, Evan
Liberty and Dustin Heard - were convicted on Wednesday of committing
multiple counts of voluntary manslaughter at a Baghdad traffic circle in
2007.

Sunday, 19 October 2014

UN, 19 October 2014 – A week after a major conference in Cairo on the
reconstruction of war-ravaged Gaza, and in the wake of recent visits to
Gaza by the Palestinian Prime Minister, Rami Hamdallah and United
Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, the key UN agency on the ground
there has begun scaling up its response to meet critical needs of people
in the Strip.
In a press release, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
announced today that it is now focusing on providing food, water and
sanitation services to over 40,000 displaced people in 18 of its
installations, psycho-social support particularly for children, cash
grants to the homeless for rent, as well as urgent repairs to 118 UNRWA
installations, so that we can bring our services to full capacity.

Friday, 17 October 2014

Two senior Israeli government ministers lashed out at US Secretary of State John Kerry on Oct. 17 over remarks he made linking the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the growth of Islamic extremism.

"I respect John Kerry and his efforts but he keeps breaking new records in lack of understanding of our region and the essence of our disputes," Communications Minister Gilad Erdan said in an interview with Israeli public radio.

Thursday, 16 October 2014

UN, 16 October 2014 – In three rounds of voting the United Nations
General Assembly today elected Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain and
Venezuela to serve as non-permanent members on the Security Council for
two-year terms beginning on 1 January 2015.
The new members will serve on the Council until 31 December 2016.
Angola Malaysia, Venezuela and New Zealand were elected in the
first vote. The Assembly then held two rounds of restricted balloting to
elect Spain to fill the remaining seat on the Council open to the
Western European and Other States Group. Turkey was the other contender
for that seat.

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

Over 82 million of China’s residents are surviving on a daily income of $1 despite China's meteoric economic growth and rising export volumes, the Strait Time reports.

“The poverty-stricken population not only suffer from low income but also face various difficulties in getting drinking water, roads, electricity, education, medical care and loans,” said aChinese official Zheng Wenkai, cited by South China Morning Post.

According to the news source, poverty remains a ever present burden for most of the Chinese population. China's rural residents average 2,300 yuan ($368) a year or about $1 a day.

Monday, 13 October 2014

E. VENIZELOS: It is a great pleasure to welcome to Athens, to the
Foreign Ministry, my dear old friend and colleague Ioannis Kasoulides,
the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Cyprus.

With Mr.
Kasoulides we had the opportunity for a one-on-one meeting, followed by a
meeting of the delegations under our direction. Thus, in two different
phases we discussed in detailed depth the situation that has taken shape
in Cyprus following the Turkish initiative, in violation of
international law, of the declaration, through a NAVTEX, of the carrying
out of exploration in maritime zones of the Republic of Cyprus, in a
region in which the Republic of Cyprus exercises its national sovereign
rights; that is, in a region of the Cypriot exclusive economic zone and
continental shelf.

Sunday, 12 October 2014

UN, 12 October 2014 – On the next stop of his tour of North Africa, Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon in Egypt today at a conference on the reconstruction of
Gaza urged all parties to last summer's war to address the root causes
of the protracted conflict to prevent the “cycle of building and
destroying” from becoming a ritual.
“We are here to stand with the people of Gaza who have endured a terrible summer of suffering,” said Mr. Ban in his remarks
to the Cairo Conference on Gaza attended by the President of the State
of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, and several foreign ministers including of
Egypt, and Norway.

Saturday, 11 October 2014

Syrian rebel forces fighting the government of President Bashar Assad
overran a military intelligence base on the Golan Heights that served as
a joint Russian-Syrian forward post for information-gathering on
Israel.

In a four-minute video clip which was posted on the
Internet by the rebels, Free Syrian Army fighters are seen in a building
in Quneitra, just near the boundary between Syria and the
Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

Friday, 10 October 2014

WASHINGTON - Turkey has agreed to support the training and equipping of
the moderate opposition in Syria, the US State Department said on
Friday, saying a US military team would visit Ankara next week to
discuss the matter.

"Turkey has agreed to support train-and-equip
efforts for the moderate Syrian opposition," spokeswoman Marie Harf
told reporters in describing a visit to Turkey by the two senior US
officials responsible for building a coalition to fight the Islamic
State militant group in Syria and Iraq.

Thursday, 9 October 2014

Greece
has accused Turkey of escalating tensions around Cyprus and undermining
negotiations on settlement of the Cyprus issue, the Greek Foreign
Ministry said in a Thursday statement.

"Unfortunately, at the
center ... is Turkey’s refusal to see that the Republic of Cyprus is an
independent and sovereign state, a member of the UN and the European
Union, that exercises sovereignty and sovereign rights, in accordance
with international law.

Wednesday, 8 October 2014

At least 18 people have been killed in pro-Kurdish protests in southeast Turkey, the Anadulo news agency reported on Wednesday. The
protesters were angry at Ankara’s lack of action to protect Kurdish
population of the Syrian border town of Kobane from the Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Eight of the deaths came in Turkey’s
main Kurdish city of Diyarbakir where the most intense rioting took
place overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, a local security official told
AFP.